Dear….
‘My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.’
Psalm 57:7
This opening verse on steadfastness brought back for me vivid recollections of the time the Spirit of God impressed upon my heart on the need to embark on a personal fast of skipping one lunch every Wednesday. Seems easy enough, just sacrificing one meal, but for a chap who was used to eating two helpings in one lunch, it is quite a challenge. But God is good, a year prior to the fast, through a dear friend in his late 70s, I was introduced to the concept of eating in moderation and by the time I started my fast, my bodily system and more importantly my mindset was more receptive to this minor deprivation.
‘Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in Thee, yea, in the shadow of Thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.’
Psalm 57:1
I remember at that moment, five years back, when I wavered as to the possibility that I might have heard God wrong, He brought me to the Book of Esther. And Queen Esther fasted before she approached the King, at great risk to her own life, to petition the King on behalf of her people. The years of fasting since have taught me one important truth. The need to be still to know the will of God, and fasting is an expression of the desire to place everything aside and take time unto the presence of our Lord. God answers all prayers asked in His will, and it is no wonder that many of our prayers are not answered because many of us do not take time with our Lord to know His will, and often the prayers we asked for are determined by our needs than the will of God. And on fasting, much as it is just skipping one meal, for the feeble me, I realized that my ability to do normal work is much reduced and that down time is best used to wait upon the Lord in prayers and reflection on His Words, and it has always been edifying.
‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, Which made heaven and earth.’
Psalm 121:1-2
To round off my rudimentary experiences with the act of fasting, I recall on the first day of my fast, it was easy, for I had a bad stomach the night before, and so food was the last thing on my mind, as many will attest to a sudden distaste for food when hit by a bout of food poisoning. The 2nd fast the following week was even less challenging, as I sat watching a dear friend eat while he shared on the word of the Lord with me. I enjoyed the spiritual food and the lack of food for the stomach was no issue. The real challenge came in the third fast on week three, when left alone in my room at lunchtime, my stomach started to churn and my imagination worked on overdrive as I did ‘see’ a luscious fully cooked chicken on a platter floating round me. And that night itself, when I took my dinner, I overate to make up for my deprivation and the result was a convoluted stomach that suffered from deprivation to overindulgence.
‘But after they had rest, they did evil again before Thee….’
Nehemiah 9:28
Fast forward to today, am I truly better off since my response to the Lord’s call to fast? Health-wise, the discipline of eating in moderation has definitely helped remove the “heartburns’ that used to plague me.
What about my spiritual growth? Most of us tend to sense God better in difficult circumstances, and are more willing to call upon Him when we need Him. And sadly the inclination is when life is more settled, and troubles have abated, in our times of rest, we gradually move away from God. With fasting, we do it a little differently. We deliberately take time to come unto the Lord’s presence in all times. It is an act of submission to the Lord, and acknowledgment of His Sovereignty, and our willingness to wait upon Him, much as troubles are brewing around us. And fasting need not be a forgoing of food, but rather, to forgo anything that will keep us away from the presence of our Lord.
Jesus Christ our Lord went on a 40 days fast even before He embarked on the ministry that God has set for Him.
And while I am told that the human body do possess excess reserves that can be burned off, much as there is no new intake of food for such a prolonged period, the true benefit of learning to place God first and foremost as our only focus is the discipline that His Spirit will imbue in us, as we seek to stay in His presence and that discipline will ensure that we will learn to anchor our all upon the Lord our God when He allows the world around us to shake, as it is already happening.
‘Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fall, and the fields shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places…’
Habakkuk 3:17-19
“Steadfast” is the word that the Spirit of our good Lord impressed upon me as I complete this sharing. Does the act of fasting in a humble and contrite manner, in a personal time of communion with the Lord, out of the glare of the public eyes, imbue in us this steadfastness in our spirit that will help us entrenched ourselves upon the Spirit of God, much as the carnal man in us feels compelled to jump into the alluring arms of the sinful world, in our times of challenges and temptations which are aplenty?
The world in the euphoric feasting from the easy monies of the past 2 years might no longer care to remember their many lamentations from the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the midst of the subprime crisis, but is this blissful delusion setting the stage for the next collapse, a Greek tragedy waiting in the wings of the world stage?
‘Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, Who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen , settle you.’
1 Peter 5:9-10
God Blesses
Eng Hieang
(17th June 2011)
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